Throughout his career, Rafael Nadal has always flirted with competitive perfection. So dedicated to his craft that he never misses a point, lets his guard down or lowers his head, Nadal is the quintessential fighter, referred to by coaches and pundits, the iconic squad of aspiration.This week at the BNP Paribas Open the Spaniard flirts with another kind of perfection: statistics. Nadal defeated Reilly Opelka, 7-6(3), 7-6(5) on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon at Stadium 1 to improve to 18-0 on the season and set up a quarter-final clash with Nick Kyrgios of Australia .With his triumph, the Spaniard becomes the second man in ATP history to start a season accumulating more than 17 wins in a row. Only Novak Djokovic, who amassed 41 straight wins to start his 20 …